


Red-Handed

by Carmenlire



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Hurt Alec Lightwood, Immortal Husbands, M/M, Post-Canon, Relapsing, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 22:05:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19385524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmenlire/pseuds/Carmenlire
Summary: The reset button is bloody and stained and he needs it so bad that he’s shaking with it. No matter that it’s been years since he last felt like this, since it’s been this bad.The tide is so overwhelming, pulling him under with dark, seductive waves that promise relief.That promise escape.





	Red-Handed

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for canon compliant self harm.

It claws at his skin, rips at his veins. He wants it so bad he can taste it.

He knows that it would ground him, that it would silence the wolf he can ear pacing behind a door he keeps locked and barred.

It’s been locked for ages. All he wants now, though, is to open it, to let the wolf in.

 _God_. He presses desperate fingers into his temples and the relief quickly turns to pain.

It’s not enough.

Traitorous tears build and it’s stupid; it’s so goddamn stupid but he feels like a cornered animal and there’s only one way to stop it.

The reset button is bloody and stained and he needs it so bad that he’s shaking with it. No matter that it’s been years since he last felt like this, since it’s been this bad.

The tide is so overwhelming, pulling him under with dark, seductive waves that promise relief.

That promise escape.

Looking down, he’s stunned when he sees red smeared across his palm. With a desperate inhale, his eyes scan over his hands and he sees that while he was distracted, he pulled a hangnail free.

A little too hard, it seems and he’s mesmerized as blood wells in the shallow cut. He presses down hard on the tender spot but it’s still not enough. The little spark of pain _isn’t enough_.

Except that when he pulls back, it’s still bleeding and by the angel, it feels so good. Reminding him of what he could have, what he _did_ have once upon a time.

His hands are shaking.

There’s a frenzy in his blood and he can feel his heart beating-- too fast and too much and he hasn’t felt like this in fucking years.

He tries to tell himself it’s been a shit day, that’s all. A shadowhunter rookie fucked up royally on a mission and he’s taken the Clave’s heat. It seems like he can't do anything right today-- spilling coffee as soon as he'd gotten to his office, accidentally permanently deleting an important file he'd worked on for hours, having to stop what he's doing every three minutes as yet another one of his shadowhunters knocks on his door with an issue.

It’s a bad day, nothing more.

A part of him thinks that if he says it enough, thinks it hard enough, then maybe he’ll believe it.

There’s still blood on his palm, dried now. Rubbing it away with a thumb, he frowns as nothing happens.

So he scrubs harder but still-- there’s still blood on his hands.

He wants more.

It’s desperate, this craving.

Without quite knowing how, he finds himself in the training room. He’s breathing hard and it’s from keeping the tears in or because his heart won’t stop trying to beat out of his chest or because he can taste oblivion and it’s sweeter than he remembers.

He uses a training bow. Not his own-- He doesn’t have time to get it.

Left alone, no one disturbs him and he loses track of time as he reaches for arrow after arrow after arrow.

There’s more blood on his hands.

He forgot how much he loved this feeling. There’s no thinking when the only thing he can feel is the trickle of blood down his wrist. There’s no feeling when his mind is empty, blissfully fucking empty for the first time in longer than he can remember.

His hands are steadier now. They have to be because he never misses a shot. He’s never sloppy. He’s the best goddamn archer in The States-- in the whole of North America and he’d place bets on being the best anywhere.

He’s trained harder and longer and with more fury than anyone else.

 _This_ , he knows how to do. He might be a shit leader and piss poor in every other area of his life but the one thing that’s always rang true is that his arrow meets the goddamn bulls-eye every fucking time.

He feels half out of his mind and completely out of his body. A part of him thinks that he’s not the one firing dozens of arrows; it’s someone else.

The voices take ages and ages to quiet. His heart feels like it’s cracking, shattering all over the floor of the Institute.

He’s so tired. His eyes burn and his chest aches but he keeps reaching for arrows to dull the pain with something stronger. 

A feeling chokes him and it takes awhile to place it. It’s been so long since he last felt it.

It’s the feeling that this is as good as it gets. This is the best he’ll ever be and it makes his gut lurch.

Because the best he’ll ever be is a failure, not good enough.

 _Not enough_.

Stumbling away from where he’d been standing for hours, he drops his arm. Only now does he feel the ache from keeping it raised for so long.

A headache starts behind his eyes.

He feels empty, drained.

Looking down at his hand, he sucks in a sharp breath. Blood covers his fingers, smears across his palm, runs down his wrist. There’s a tiny little pool of it on the ground where he’d been standing.

His breathing grows harsh in the quiet of the training room. His eyes are fixed to the crimson puddle, mesmerized.

It’s been so long since this last happened and just like that, he’s sucked back in.

The pain is vicious in his hand and his hearing picks up the sound of the drops that fall from his lax fingers.

In a slow topple, he falls until he’s sitting on the floor, staring at what he’s just done. It’s like he comes back to himself, the veil lifting to reveal what he’s always feared.

It’s back.

He let it in.

He wasn’t strong enough to keep the tide back. 

His mouth is dry and when he swallows, it’s painful.

 _I deserves it_ , he thinks.

 _That’s what I get_ , he tells himself with a self-hatred so deep it makes him sick.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there before applying an iratze, before laboriously cleaning up his mess.

When he goes home that night, there’s no evidence of what he’s done. Shame burns bright and there must be shadows in his eyes because his husband kisses him and asks _what’s wrong_ in a careful tone.

When he replies _nothing_ in a gruff voice, he almost chokes on the word. It tastes like ash in his mouth. It tastes like deceit.

He rationalizes it. It was only once. One slip-up, no need to concern his husband.

Except, as it turns out, it’s not an isolated accident.

It’s a little terrifying, how easy it is to slip back into old habits. He knows just how to hide his injuries. Excuses roll off his tongue like so much bullshit that he almost believes them himself.

The craving is a low grade addiction. He finds himself in the training room more than he has since he was appointed Inquisitor. He goes on missions and that gives him more plausible deniability-- wounds are to be expected on patrol, after all.

His mind feels wrapped in cotton, his thoughts are circuitous and exhausting and there’s so much self-loathing that he thinks he could suffocate on it.

Supposes he will someday, eventually.

He enters their loft long after his husband falls asleep. His sleep is shit lately. He wakes up often, the bed uncomfortable and he wonders how he ever found a good night’s rest on the goddamned torture rack.

Eating slips his mind more often than not. He’s so busy and there’s a little voice in his head that whispers maybe he doesn’t deserve to eat-- not when he’s such a fuck up, not when he has so much on his plate.

He’s tired, all the time. It feels like he’s dragging himself through the day and it gets harder each morning to wake up and pretend like he’s just like everyone else.

There’s always solace, though. When he pulls the string of his bow taut, he finds relief. He breathes deep on the release and his mind empties for one glorious second.

He chases that feeling. Most of him thinks he’ll chase that feeling straight into hell.

It’s months after his slip up when he swings open the door to the loft and comes to a freezing halt.

Because there's his husband, waiting up for him.

His first thought is, _you should be asleep_.

His husband studies him and it’s clinical, on the surface at least. He sees the worry lingering in his eyes, though, and fury--blinding rage-- sweeps through him when those lovely gold eyes fall to his hands.

There’s nothing to see but that doesn’t make him feel any less exposed.

Cornered.

The irritation is absurd, over the top. There’s shouting and he knows as he yells that he’s wrong but he can’t help himself.

 _Don’t you trust me_ , he cries. _How dare you accuse me of-- of what? Lying to you?_

Words are flung in his face and they’re desperate and beseeching but firm nonetheless.

 _I asked you not to push me away when things get crazy_.

It’s a long night and if he thought he was tired before, it’s nothing to the bone-deep exhaustion that seems to weigh him down once he admits that things have been bad for weeks, that he hasn’t told anyone about his training sessions, hasn’t dared mention the rest of it.

It’s hard. It’s so damned hard.

They talk, though. Long into the night, after the tears and recriminations, they go to bed and spend hours talking.

It’s a balm on his soul. It’s a different kind of relief but he likes this one so much better.

It’s a long road back. His fingers twitch for release far longer than he thinks appropriate. He lets his husband talk him into therapy-- something he’d scoffed at and yearned for by turns since he was old enough to realize that other people didn’t feel the way he did, didn’t resort to the things he did to quiet the voices and doubt.

It’s a long road back and he slips a few times. Stumbles a few more besides.

Still, his husband remains by his side and he never hides the bad times again, even when he wants to, even when it’s the only thought he can reach.

Slowly, things get better and while he quietly fears that it will come back-- that everything will come crashing back down in a year, five years, a hundred-- he builds himself back up with sheer determination and pure grit and a plodding sense of hope.

 _One day at a time_ , he tells himself when things are bad.

One day at a time.

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on tumblr or twitter @carmenlire!


End file.
